Here's a pic of my first brew, an ESB clone brew after 8 days in the primary. Not sure what I did right vs wrong but fwiw I used bottled spring water. Also when I boiled it for 60 minutes I couldn't get it to a hard boil on my electric stove and by the time it got a decent boil it probably added an extra 20 or so minutes.

Good and interesting points you make about the yeast. I recently brewed a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone, my first all-grain, and after two weeks in primary, still very cloudy, and gravity down to about 1.010 - 1.012 from an OG of 1.053. I had used yeast harvested from Sierra Nevada bottles, which I thought had done surprisingly well. I had the harvested yeast growing in extract wort for about a week and it appeared to be a very robust sample. After 24 hours, fermenter had a great staccato rhythm going. Perhaps it was just too much yeast? I've racked to secondary yesterday but may have to try the gelatin for the first time.

Color and clarity are only 3 points on the BJCP exam, and for good reason. There are bad things which can cause clarity problems, but not all clarity problems are from bad things. Aroma and taste ultimately trump the day. However, I, too, am disappointed when I cannot get my beers crystal clear. But what is the metric? Almost all commercial beers are filtered, they use post kettle finings (Sierra Nevada uses Polyclar Plus, for example), and frankly, I haven't found that customers are all that concerned about clarity if the product tastes good. Having said that, if you don't filter, you need to run down your checklist, beginning with grain, crush, Ca++ levels, hot break, cold break, kettle finings, yeast strain, yeast health, need I go on? At the end of the day, it is Tincture of Time!